Aarp Fires On Social Security Plan

The Senior-citizens Group Is Attacking Bush's Proposal With Clout And Dollars.

March 30, 2005|By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum the Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- In the punch-for-punch debate about Social Security, the AARP is working hard to keep the White House on the ropes.

When President Bush arrives in Iowa today to talk up his private-accounts proposal, the senior-citizens group plans to counter him with two news conferences, the release of a national poll, full-page newspaper advertisements, and commercials on radio and television.

During this week and last, the AARP, the nation's largest lobby, will have spent more than $5 million on ads attacking the president's Social Security plan -- nearly three times as much as all the supporters of his proposal put together. That's just for starters.

Every state that has a swing-vote senator will have AARP forums, which have been drawing about 300 people each. And every time a member of Congress holds a town meeting, AARP volunteers are dispatched there to protest the president's plan for individual accounts.

"We're going to do this as long as it takes," said William Novelli, the AARP's chief executive. "We will put just about everything we have into it."

No organization has more tools or more money to wage such a battle. So its friends and adversaries agree: The AARP holds the key to how or whether Social Security will be restructured this year. "It will be very difficult to do anything without AARP's support," said Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. "And it would be a heck of a lot easier if they came along."

The AARP's 35 million membership base is 10 times the size of the National Rifle Association's, and its $800 million budget is five times that of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country's biggest business association. In number of members, the AARP is surpassed only by the Roman Catholic Church.

Some polls show that a majority of voters reject Bush's plan to make investment accounts part of the retirement program, a result that can be attributed in part to the AARP's persuasiveness.

"We're behind the curve right now," said Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La., a Bush ally and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee's Social Security subcommittee. "The momentum is with the other team."

"I'm hopeful that maybe we can construct a plan," McCrery said. "AARP represents for us a very valuable ally if we can get it to sign on to what we want to do."